


You Can Be My Knight

by craple



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Oh wow, Pre-Slash, but they are actually adorable okay come to think of it, this is usually not my thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-30
Updated: 2013-03-30
Packaged: 2017-12-06 23:17:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/741332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/craple/pseuds/craple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You – there’s no room for you here, tonight.” Gendry begins; his voice embarrassingly loud and throaty. “Mine is big enough for the two of us.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can Be My Knight

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know why i ship them - but i just do. i can't actually imagine gendry with anyone but edric, in a renly/loras relationship-sort-of-way. it's adorable.

“King’s Landing is no safer than the North is,” Lem says. “It belongs to the Boltons now, m’lady, and they have pledged their alliance to the Bitch-Queen.”

It is the title Edric has picked up from his relatives back at Dorne, and everyone in the Brotherhood has taken quite a liking to it since the lad mentioned it for the first time.

Gendry tracks the boy across the room, between rows of solemn faces; finds him sharing a piece of his bread to the small boys surrounding him in awe. His hair has been cut short and dyed brown, along with the rest of the Brotherhood members, including Gendry himself, as to avoid suspicion.

Lady Stoneheart’s order, Thoros had said – as he burned Lord Beric’s body on top of large wet stones. And so they did.

After all, pretty blonde boys like Edric of House Dayne are easily recognised among heaps of mud-caked boys. It’s just – there’s no point to it, no matter how dark they dyed his hair, or cover his face with mud – Edric will always look beautiful.

Put him in a brothel, Angus had said, jokingly in a drunken stupor, and they would all line up to pay for his pretty little arse. Gendry has been unable to erase that image ever since.

Jeyne comes over and hands him a piece of bread. Cheese, it smells like. Not yet expired, but still eatable. “You know the little lordling, don’t you?” she says, not really asking. “Be a good lad and give this to him; the boys won’t leave him no matter how much bread he shares.”

“Too naive for his own good,” Gendry agrees, and ignores the look Jeyne shoots his way.

“Sevenstreams’ still at the Frey, m’lady.” Harwin informs. “We’ve been cleaning out Lord Frey’s guards, be as it may, those who slaughtered our brothers of the North.”

Gendry slinks into the shadow purposefully – he has learnt a lot since Harrenhall, learnt a lot since _Arya_ – situates himself between Edric and the boys, glaring at them until they scram. They do, but not without resistance and some quite creative swearing sent his way.

Edric muffles his laugh by chewing on his lower lip. Gendry catalogues the movement without showing, hopefully, much interest. He shoves the bread not unkindly to the boy’s chest.

“You keep feeding them and they won’t leave you alone.” Gendry tells him, ignoring the silent wolf-whistle from Jack across the room. No one notices, thank the gods. Edric smiles.

“In Dorne, we don’t have this many starving children, you know.” Edric says. “Our country is prosper, our people kind. We are not as corrupted as the Queen-Bitch and her brothers are. Now look at where it got her.”

Arya has told him of similar thing, only she was talking about Winterfell and Riverrun, but not of Dorne. It’s the same speech she gave him before she left without ever looking back. Gendry’s throat constricts. “Are you leaving then, back to Dorne?” he asks.

Edric halts mid-chew, swallows, and then rests his head against Gendry’s shoulder tiredly. His hair smells of pine and rosemary, and Gendry nuzzles his face closer until his lips touch the skin of Edric’s temple.

“Would you leave with me, if I ask you to, or would you stay here and let me go – like you did with Arya?” ever so bold, Edric looks at him straight in the eye, the question firm and loud enough to be heard, some people turn their heads at them.

Jeyne indiscreetly drags herself bodily to listen to their conversation. Lady Stoneheart’s focus is, thankfully, elsewhere.

“You can be my knight,” Edric continues. “Dorne needs a good smith like you. They’ll pay you well, as well as the people of the North.” Because King’s Landing payment does not, in fact, very fulfilling and Edric clearly knows that.

Gendry smiles. “That answers the question everyone’s been wondering then,” he says. “Lady Stoneheart’s marching south.”

“No,” Edric sighs. “Just me and two others.”

They fall silent after that, and Gendry feigns interest to whatever it is Lady Stoneheart is saying – the language of the Damned, Gendry thinks, unconsciously wrapping his fingers around Edric’s thin wrist to feel his pulse – before he finally decides.

“You – there’s no room for you here, tonight.” Gendry begins; his voice embarrassingly loud and throaty. “Mine is big enough for the two of us.”

Behind them, Jeyne downright _chokes_ to stifle her laugh. Gendry tries to clamp down the flush of embarrassment from creeping up his face and fails, shifting nervously on his spot. This is so much easier when he is talking to another male or female he has no intent or interest with.

Edric scoffs in amusement and nudges his shoulder against Gendry’s own, his fingers reaching for Gendry’s and curling them together intimately. “I was hoping you’d ask.” He whispers playfully.

No matter – Edric will probably leave tomorrow again, and this time, he might not come back, but he won’t make the same mistake by not telling him how much he _cares_ , in a way that is not just as friends, but as something else entirely.

From the way Edric is looking at their fingers, though; intertwined in a way he always imagines it would be, intimate and loving, at the same time desperate and aching – Gendry _knows_ without needing it to be said, that Edric feels the same.


End file.
